A variety of brewing systems or beverage making apparatus have been developed which utilize methods of distributing water over a brewing substance or combining water or other ingredients with beverage producing ingredients. In some systems, water is controllably turned on and off to controllably dispense water during the production of a beverage. Disclosed is a system for controlling the strength, flavor, or other characteristics of the product produced by the beverage making apparatus.
By way of background, U.S. Pat. No. 5,375,508 to Knepler, assigned to the Assignee of the present application, includes a beverage making apparatus in the form of a brewer which controllably operates the dispensing of brew water or beverage producing water over ground coffee. As the Knepler '508 patent is not limited to coffee but the term “coffee” is referred to herein for convenience. The device in the Knepler '508 patent discloses a brewer which includes a heated water reservoir which dispenses water to a brewing substance container such as a brew funnel for producing a brewed beverage. A controller is provided which controllably operates the dispensing of water to the brewing substance container. In this manner, water is pulsed from the reservoir to the container. This form of beverage brewing and associated equipment is generically referred to in the brewing industry as pulse brew.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,388,501 to Hazan shows a beverage brewer in which water is divided into quantities which are used during the brewing process. As noted in the Hazan '501 patent, water is dispensed to pre-wet the grounds and then, subsequently, dispensed in steps or pulses which are spaced in time. The Hazan '501 patent also provides a pulse brew system.
While pulse brew systems or equipment have been developed, they generally are not configured to easily control the pulse brew system for controlling the strength of the coffee. In this regard, prior pulse brew systems have mechanically divided dispensing of water over a predetermined brewing cycle, allowed the user to manually set a variety of controls, provided for automatic setting of controls, and other configurations of the systems. However, it is currently unknown how to easily allow a user to vary the strength or other characteristics of the brewed beverage by an easy control system to control the pulse brew system.